A long table stretched across the center of the throne room, yet calling it a "room" felt like an insult to what it truly was. This was no enclosed chamber. This was a palace without walls, a cathedral stitched into the fabric of reality itself. Its columns were constellations; its floors, rippling threads of galactic energy. It felt eternal, as if the table had been placed in the center of existence itself—and perhaps, now, it had.
At the first edge of the table sat Liam Reeds. Twelve other seats were arranged along the sides—six to his left, six to his right. Curiously, there was no seat at the opposite end. There was no one else left to share the burden of that position.
Seated along both sides were twelve individuals; seven men and five women. They wore simple clothes, nothing regal or adorned with power. One man, however, stood out, dressed in a navy-blue police uniform, his badge gleaming faintly under the glimmering, ambient light of the cosmos above.
They laughed freely. Talked over one another. Smiles bloomed, stories flowed. Fingers reached across dishes of impossible cuisine. Roasted meats that smelled of ancient hearths, fruits, bread that crumbled into golden flakes with every bite.
Aaron, always the tactician, was already arguing mock-seriously with Elio, who leaned back and grinned like the king of lazy jokes. Marcus, the man in uniform, kept one hand near his belt out of instinct, even here, even now.
Theo listened more than he spoke, and Luca was too busy stuffing his mouth to notice who was paying attention. Ryo laughed the loudest, knocking over a wine goblet with one wild gesture that Fay, the engineer, caught mid-air without looking.
Across from them, Elise spoke softly while turning the pages of a floating book that never ran out of words. Mina gestured animatedly, spinning an invisible thread of logic that only she fully understood. Solenne raised her glass with elegance, her silence somehow louder than the rest.
And closest to Liam, on his left, was Kaia. Dark-skinned, soft-eyed, her voice always gentle, Kaia turned to him mid-laughter, her smile dimming just enough to show concern.
"You're not eating," she said. "What's the matter?"
Liam didn't look at her right away. His gaze was distant, fixed somewhere behind the stars, and when he finally turned, the expression on his face was serene.
"I was just thinking," he said, "that this moment… everything you see here—every sound, every word, every bite—it's all happening because I want it."
The entire room fell into silence. No gasp. No movement. No questioning. The laughter died. Forks halted midair. Eyes froze, locked on him, not in fear, not in anticipation, but in that vacant stillness that mirrored marionettes with their strings suddenly pulled taut.
Liam's smile thinned into something tired. He raised his hand and with a casual flick of his fingers, the feast vanished. The table shattered into light. The seats unraveled into ribbons of time. And the twelve familiar faces disintegrated without pain or drama—no screams, no resistance. Just soft, obedient dissolution.
Even his own chair, once occupied, crumbled beneath him. Liam remained standing, alone in the great silence of his throne room. Only the echo of a memory remained.
He walked forward slowly and stopped before his throne—long, jagged, carved from the purest obsidian thought, but still, he did not sit.
The truth weighed heavier now than it had during battle. It wasn't difficult to recreate the people he loved, the world he missed. No. That was the easy part. The memories were sharp. The feelings fresh. The problem was him.
He was no longer their equal. He was their god. He knew what they would say before they opened their mouths. He could feel their thoughts, tweak them, erase them, rebuild them. He had become the author of their fate. There was no mystery anymore. No chaos. No surprise.
And without those things… was it really them?
The system that had ruled his life was gone now. Aesirius—the one behind it all—had been nothing more than a master designer with godlike reach, orchestrating the ascent of Liam from the very beginning. Everything, down to the final blow, had played into the fallen god's plan.
That was a year ago or something like it. There were no clocks anymore. No rotation of planets to mark the passage of time. Just Liam, drifting in the silence of absolute dominion, wondering what to do with power that had no limits.
But now he understood. He couldn't keep holding on. He couldn't keep pretending that recreating the past would somehow bring it back. The world he once knew was gone. What remained was a role. A crown of omnipotence placed on his head whether he had wanted it or not.
So now… he would wear it.
Liam stepped onto the platform before his throne. The vast expanse of nothingness awaited his command, stretching out endlessly before him like a blank canvas.
He exhaled slowly.
And then, in a voice that echoed across the void like the very first sound in creation, he said:
"Let there be light."